A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformation of a New England Town, 1815-1848

Fuhrer, Mary Babson

ISBN 10: 1469629925 / ISBN 13: 9781469629926

Published by The University of North Carolina Press, 2016

About this Item

Seller Inventory # WFBV.1469629925.VG

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Crisis of Community: The Trials and Transformation of a New England Town, 1815-1848
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1469629925
• ISBN 13: 9781469629926
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

Synopsis

In the first decades of the American republic, Mary White, a shopkeeper’s wife from rural Boylston, Massachusetts, kept a diary. Woven into its record of everyday events is a remarkable tale of conflict and transformation in small-town life. Sustained by its Puritan heritage, gentry leadership, and sense of common good, Boylston had survived the upheaval of revolution and the creation of the new nation. Then, in a single generation of wrenching change,the town and tis people descended into contentious struggle. Examining the tumultuous Jacksonian era at the intimate level of family and community, Mary Babson Fuhrer brings to life the troublesome creation of a new social, political, and economic order centered on individual striving and voluntary associations in an expansive nation.

Blending family records and a rich trove of community archives, Fuhrer examines the “age of revolutions” through the lens of a rural community that was swept into the networks of an expanding and urbanizing New England region. This finely detailed history lends new depth to our understanding of a key transformative moment in American history.

About the Author

Mary Babson Fuhrer is a public historian who specializes in the social history of New England, providing research and programs for historical, humanities, and heritage associations. She lives in Littleton, Massachusetts.